KHS School Report
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The Pool. Those who were there before the 1980s will remember the uncovered pool. Indeed the very old ones might even remember the pool down the hill close to Cornwell Manor, formed by damming the brook. But swimming in the open air, unheated pool, the one beside the gym, was a test of resolve. Indeed it was rarely before the middle of summer that the pool became warm enough to use with any pleasure and by then the boys had gone home for their holidays and it was a popular facility for the resident staff and their families. The question of covering and heating it was discussed at great length. Eventually I paid a visit to Cranford School down in Dorset to see the plastic bubble they had used for their pool. It seemed suited to our needs, the cost was something we could consider and so it was during the 80s that we could at last use the pool all year round. Of course it was a primitive solution compared to the present magnificent facility but it was better than its predecessor. |
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More important though than physical amenities are the activities in a school. Again, what to select!
The Greens. The school has an enviable and fully justified reputation for excellence in Learning Support of various kinds. You have to realise that dyslexia, SLD, learning support and so on were only just emerging as educational phenomena in the early 80s. There was the education officer in I think Kent who famously said that dyslexia was a disease invented by the middle classes to account for the poor educational performance of their children! Much of the credit for the development of this crucial side of school's work goes to Hilary Green, who I appointed initially as a teacher of rural science but who rapidly moved into the full range of SLD. Where to locate her department? Above the two rooms at the end of the corridor in top school were storerooms, used as places in which to keep props and supplies for school plays, hence known as the Green Rooms. They seemed a possible place, so the SLD department moved there and the combination of Mrs Green in the Green Room made it right to call the new department the Greens. And I'm happy to see that the name has stuck, and the current magnificent facilities for the Greens show that the work started by Mrs Green has flourished.
Green Room exterior
Mention of the green room reminds me of the occasion when a member of staff took some boys up there to get some props, but came back down having left one poor lad locked in. He banged and shouted to no effect so eventually looked in the props baskets, found a sword obviously left over from a production of Hamlet, and pushed it down with all his might between the floor boards. Godfrey Nicholson, teaching maths in the room below, was amazed, and his class delighted, to see a sword coming down through the ceiling. Maths was never the same again!
CDT. The other great educational movement as the 70s moved into the 80s was the shift from traditional craft work - woodwork, metal work, engineering drawing - to Design Technology and all the developments eg computer aided design, which have followed. Bob Herringshaw and I travelled round the country, visiting schools such as Shrewsbury where arguably the whole initiative began, to a huge comprehensive school in Milton Keynes which had just opened a state of the art facility. On the basis of what we saw and in discussions with the architects we came up with the present lay-out, obviously modified over the years in response to shifting demands but serving, it would seem from the visits I have subsequently paid, the purposes for which we created it. We might not have got it totally right - you will have to ask our successors - but we seem not to have got it very wrong.
CCF. It is impossible to overstate the importance and the influence of the CCF in the school's life. Of course this is not restricted to the 80s but that period saw the development within the CCF programme of a range of outdoor pursuits under Bob Shepton and specifically the sailing trips in his boat, Dodo's Delight. Starting with short expeditions across the Channel, then to the Azores, then across the Atlantic, then to Greenland and Newfoundland, and leading eventually to the round the world venture in the 90s. It was not easy for the school to sanction them. The memory of Rohilla is still keenly felt. Teddy Cooper gently asked me to be careful of what we did - he felt the pain of Rohilla as much as anyone and he feared a repeat. But the fact of so many boys following service careers is tribute to the inspiration which the CCF at that time, and in other periods too, provide for generations of Kingham Hill students. I think of Malcolm Brecht, just completing his three years as CO at RAF Brize Norton, Adam Mallalieu who was very senior in the SBS, Roger Hughes and Nigel Bartlett who appeared in full Marines rig at the funeral of Les Peake. There are many more. |
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Cycling in Europe. The cycling and camping trips, which I and Rodney Chapman and Bob and Elizabeth Herringshaw took for several years, are another indication of the way in which things were changing as the 80s merged into the 90s. We would take a couple of school mini buses, laden with camping gear, and perhaps 15 or 20 boys on bikes and off we would go - Waterloo, Holland and Arnhem, First World War sites in Northern France, the Normandy Beaches. First thing in the morning we gave the boys maps and sent them off, in groups of two or three, with instructions to be at point X at mid-day for lunch. Then we'd all assemble at the appointed time, something to eat, then another map to the next camp site at 5.00. Risk assessment, health and safety, pre-visits to check that all is appropriate - all these things were yet to come. But I admire enormously the accounts I hear now each year at Speech Day of working parties to Romania and such like; clearly the challenges of Health and Safety are being met and overcome.
Centenary. 1986 saw the celebrations of the school's centenary. All sorts of events with perhaps the highlights being a special service at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, with the sermon from a Kingham Hill Trustee, Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith; Centenary Speech Day with Speaker of the House George Thompson, Lord Tonypandy, who apparently entertained lots of parents and boys on the train back up to London that evening; and the days outing for the whole school, teaching and non teaching staff and boys in a fleet of coaches to Alton Towers with a pig roast waiting for us when we got back.
This is already too long. One can go on indefinitely, and I've said nothing about studies - scandalous. Reminiscences can give the impression that things should not change, that the past was always, somehow, better. Not so; institutions, like people, must develop and change; if they don't they stultify. I am always greatly cheered when I visit the school and see so much wonderful work going on and so many new developments. |
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I am a Trustee of the Frank Buttle Trust, which shares in the funding at any one time of some 250 youngsters at schools up and down the country, youngsters whose circumstances are such that their interests are better served by their being in a different school to that which the state provides. Kingham Hill is the second largest provider of places for Buttle students, normally between 8 and 12 Kingham Hill children are there because of help from Buttle. It is relatively easy to produce the money; it is much more difficult to provide the support and nurture and education and opportunities that they so desperately need. I know from my work with Buttle that the record of the Hill is second to none in its success with the children it takes. The Founder would be proud.... and content.
David Shepherd
Kingham Hill 1975 to 1990.
Mr and Mrs Shepherd enjoying their retirement.
"And finally" - a couple of anecdotes received from David Shepherd.
I was the warden (head teacher) when Andrew Adonis was at school. I read in his article that he says he was 'no good at sport'. True - he even now is a relatively slight figure and so the hurly burly of rugby or basket ball clearly wasn't for him. But recognising that some kind of sporting achievement was helpful in establishing yourself in a boys school he made himself, through sheer determination and hard work, into a very competent cross country runner, to the extent that he won, if my memory serves me right, the mass cross country on one occasion. He is in this respect, as in so many others, a fine example of what can be achieved if you set your mind to it.
[Readers might like to read a BBC article in which Lord Andrew Adonis refers to his time at Kingham.]
Likewise Malcolm Brecht and his quite remarkable integrity. I was refereeing a rugby house match between Clyde - Malcolm was in Clyde - and another house, it doesn't matter which. Clyde had on the team a boy who was - how can I phrase this? - less than honourable. There was a clearing kick into touch by the other team, everyone was running back for the line out, Malcolm passed me with several of his team mates and turned to this boy as he passed and said, "Do that again, and I'll send you off!" This to a member of his own team! I'm afraid I as referee hadn't seen what he had done - shame on me! - but it was apparent that Malcolm wasn't prepared to have playing for a team of which he was captain someone who behaved in an unacceptable way.